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I have a 125amp panel and by adding a 50amp NEMA 14-50 connection I would have gone over and thus wouldn't be able to get a permit for the electrical work. I live in a condo, so I had to have everything permitted. By Solar City's load calculations, I was drawing about 8amps more than allowable. So, what I did was I purchased a 15 amp LG washer dryer combo (Washer Dryer Combos: Compare LG's Washer Dryer Combos | LG USA). This changed my washer/dryer breaker from 30amps to 15amps and then I was allowed to install the 50amp NEMA 14-50!

It's definitely going to depend on your use case. Our old washer/dryer needed to be repaired anyway, so we just got rid of it. The new combo washer/dryer isn't for heavy duty family use (it's just the two of us), and that's fine by us. Going this route was the only way we could sneak the 14-50 in there.

...it is always worth considering if you can accomodate a natural gas dryer. In many areas the energy costs are lower. In my case it freed up a 240V 30A circuit which goes a long way to having a NEMA 14-50 installed.

Meta

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